The Agentic AI Foundation (AAIF) is a neutral, open foundation under the Linux Foundation, announced on 9 December 2025, that holds shared standards for AI agents outside any single company. It launched with Anthropic's Model Context Protocol (MCP), Block's goose and OpenAI's AGENTS.md, and as of November 2026 its website lists ten projects.
The foundation doesn't make a product you buy. It holds the open standards that the AI tools you already use depend on, which is why it's worth knowing about even if you'll never write a line of code.
Founders, members and who runs it
Anthropic, Block and OpenAI founded the AAIF, each contributing one project. The Linux Foundation, which describes itself as the home for collaboration on open source software, hardware, standards and data, runs it alongside projects such as Linux, Kubernetes, PyTorch, OpenSSF and RISC-V.
| Membership level at launch | Members named |
|---|---|
| Platinum | Amazon Web Services, Anthropic, Block, Bloomberg, Cloudflare, Google, Microsoft, OpenAI |
| Gold | Adyen, Cisco, Datadog, Docker, IBM, JetBrains, Okta, Oracle, Salesforce, SAP, Shopify, Snowflake, Twilio |
| Silver | Hugging Face, Pydantic, Uber, WorkOS, Zapier |
The launch quotes all made the same point: no lock-in. Google Cloud's Richard Seroter said shared standards let developers trust that what they build is interoperable. Microsoft's Chris DiBona called for an open, interoperable and reliable foundation. Cloudflare's Dane Knecht said open protocols mean anyone can build agents across platforms without lock-in. Jim Zemlin, Executive Director of the Linux Foundation, said that within one year MCP, AGENTS.md and goose had become essential tools for developers building agents.
The three founding projects
MCP is described as the universal standard protocol for connecting AI models to tools, data and applications. Anthropic open-sourced it in November 2024. At the foundation's launch, the Linux Foundation counted more than 10,000 published MCP servers, and named Claude, Cursor, Microsoft Copilot, Gemini, VS Code and ChatGPT as adopters. Anthropic's Chief Product Officer, Mike Krieger, said the donation keeps MCP open, neutral and community-driven as it becomes critical infrastructure. If you're connecting Claude to your own apps, my guide to Claude connectors covers that side.
AGENTS.md is a simple markdown-based standard that gives coding agents project-specific guidance. OpenAI released it in August 2025, and by the foundation's launch it had been adopted by more than 60,000 open source projects and agent frameworks, including Amp, Codex, Cursor, Devin, Factory, Gemini CLI, GitHub Copilot, Jules and VS Code.
goose is Block's open source, local-first AI agent framework, released in early 2025. It combines language models, extensible tools and MCP-based integration. To see what such an agent can plug into, a list of MCP servers makes a practical starting point.
Ten projects on the list as of November 2026
The foundation has grown well past its first three. Here's what its own website lists:
| Project | What the foundation says it does |
|---|---|
| Model Context Protocol (MCP) | The standard for connecting AI models to tools, data and applications |
| AGENTS.md | Markdown guidance file for coding agents |
| goose | Block's local-first AI agent framework |
| Agent Skills | An open format for reusable agent expertise |
| Agent2Agent (A2A) | An open protocol that lets agents communicate and exchange tasks across platforms and frameworks |
| Agent Router | An open source AI gateway built on Envoy |
| agentgateway | Listed on the foundation's project page |
| Open Responses | A shared LLM API format for agents |
| OpenEnv | Open environments for training agents |
| OpenSandbox | Listed on the foundation's project page |
Why Anthropic handed over Agent Skills
In 2026 Anthropic donated Agent Skills to the AAIF. A skill is a folder containing a SKILL.md file that teaches an agent a task or domain, plus any scripts or reference material it needs. Anthropic says more than 70 agent platforms, including ChatGPT, Cursor, GitHub Copilot and VS Code, have integrated Agent Skills since it published the standard in December 2025. For how skills work in practice, see my explainer on what agent skills are.
The numbers are big. Anthropic says developers published thousands of skills on GitHub within weeks of its October 2025 launch, and that so far one million skills have been published and nearly 280 million installed. Anthropic handed over the Agent Skills name and logo, the GitHub organisation and the agentskills.io domain, and you can keep using or contributing to the standard without joining the AAIF.
Engineers from Anthropic, Google, OpenAI and other companies maintain the standard as individuals, with David Soria Parra and Mahesh Murag as Lead Maintainers. The proposed roadmap covers versioned releases, a formal proposal process and security guidance for people who write and install skills. Both sides give the same reason for the move: neutral governance keeps the standard open, community-driven and vendor-neutral.
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Events, newsletters and taking part
At the launch, AAIF member Obot.ai donated its MCP Dev Summit events and podcast, and the first listed summit ran in New York City on 2 and 3 April 2026. As of November 2026 the foundation's site lists these upcoming events:
- Voice Agents Forum, San Francisco, 5 November 2026.
- MCP Dev Summit Nairobi, 19 and 20 November 2026.
- AGNTCon plus MCPCon North America, San Francisco, 28 and 29 April 2027.
- AGNTCon plus MCPCon Europe, London, 15 and 16 September 2027.
Anyone can submit a project proposal through the foundation's GitHub process, and the site also offers a weekly briefing and a daily agentic AI newsletter.
What the AAIF means when you're choosing AI tools
- Ask any vendor you're evaluating whether it supports MCP, AGENTS.md and Agent Skills.
- Keep your own instructions and know-how in those open formats rather than in a format only one vendor reads.
- Check the foundation's project list for an existing standard before your team builds its own.
- If you want a say in where a standard goes, join the project through its GitHub process.
My advice is simple. When you're picking an AI tool for your team, I'd treat support for these open standards as a basic requirement, not a nice extra. The point of the foundation is that the work you put into skills, instructions and connections can move with you if you change tools, and that's only true if you store it in the open formats.
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Frequently asked questions
What is the Agentic AI Foundation?
It's a neutral, open foundation under the Linux Foundation, announced on 9 December 2025, that holds shared standards for AI agents outside any single company.
Who founded the Agentic AI Foundation?
Anthropic, Block and OpenAI. They contributed the Model Context Protocol, goose and AGENTS.md as the three founding projects.
What projects does the AAIF hold?
As of November 2026 its website lists Agent Router, Agent Skills, Agent2Agent, AGENTS.md, agentgateway, goose, Model Context Protocol, Open Responses, OpenEnv and OpenSandbox.
Do you need to join the AAIF to use Agent Skills?
No. Anthropic says you can keep using or contributing to the Agent Skills standard without joining the foundation.
Can anyone propose a project to the AAIF?
Yes. Anyone can submit a project proposal through the foundation's GitHub process.
